


you fold into me like a heart with a beat

by sublime_jumbles



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Accidental Overeating, Belly Kink, Canon Compliant, Comfort Eating, Feeding, Feeding Kink, Fluff and Angst, Hand Feeding, Hiccups, Lite Anxiety, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Overeating, Stress Eating, Very Gentle Angst, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, binge eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 05:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18910876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sublime_jumbles/pseuds/sublime_jumbles
Summary: “Wait,” says Stevie. “Why do you think Patrick is about to break up with you?”David leans over his mug of mediocre coffee. “He ate an entire half a cheesecake after dinner last night!” he hisses, although Patrick is safely across the street, minding the store while David takes his lunch. “And the other half for breakfast this morning. What else does that mean?”Or: when Patrick begins putting on some relationship weight, David's doomsday anxieties threaten to get the better of him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY, i've been wanting to write something for schitt's creek forever and HERE WE ARE. if you have not watched yet, please do! it is a master class in character development and it will also make you scream.
> 
> big thanks to runningrabbit for donating the cheesecake conversation!!
> 
> and of course, the biggest thanks to wy and jern for betaing!! your feedback is always v v appreciated.
> 
> title from "too much" by carly rae jepsen.

David is  _ supposed _ to be arranging the new shipment of body milks. The packaging is sleek and sophisticated, falling just left of sand to the merest suggestion of rose gold, and he’s sure that it will be this week’s biggest cosmetic hit, if he can just get them out of the box and onto the display. 

Which would be a lot easier if he could make himself stop staring across the store, where Patrick is absently snacking on the brownie bites the cafe is test-driving as he flips through his budget binder. Ordinarily budgets would be back-room work, but it’s slow inside and rainy outside, and David is sure no one will venture out for anything less than a major cosmetic emergency. That is, if such a thing exists in this town, which he’s pretty sure it never has.

David is very sure, however, that he himself is experiencing some other kind of emergency. The kind where his heart feels like it’s getting hit with thousands of tiny electric shocks, like the electrolysis his mother insisted he get when he was twelve to “differentiate his eyebrows from one another.” 

He keeps catching himself grinding his teeth against his will, opening and closing his hands in a vain attempt to release some of the tension. His mind is stuck on the idea of feeding Patrick those brownie bites with his hands, like maybe a lot of them, enough that he makes those soft distressed-puppy sounds he’s prone to when he falls asleep against David on the couch after decimating an entire pizza. It definitely isn’t the kind of thought he wants to entertain in the workplace, but the thought of Patrick’s lips against his fingertips, of those sleepy overfull groans, still charges him with longing.

He forces his gaze away from Patrick’s mouth and lands instead on the last couple buttons on Patrick’s shirt, which have been getting steadily snugger over the past few months as Patrick’s sweet little swell of puppy fat has softened into a comfortable belly. He looks obscenely touchable, the kind of plush David’s hands beg to sink into, and it kills David that he can’t do that  _ right here and now _ . 

“David?” says Patrick, and David starts so violently that he fumbles and nearly drops the bottle of body milk he’s been clutching. “You okay?”

David hisses in a breath and hugs himself, the body milk still hostage in his hand. “I’m fine.”

Patrick hauls himself up from his perch behind the counter. “You sure? Because you look like you’re fixating.”

He’s coming closer, and David hurriedly lines up some body milks so he has an excuse to look away. 

“Fine!” he says, straightening the bottles. “I’m fine. Just — distracted by your astonishing prowess for numbers.” He waves a hand toward the counter and clears his throat. “Your, uh, staggering business acumen.”

“Oh, yeah?” Patrick moves behind David and slips his arms around David’s waist. “Should I be capitalizing on that?” He kisses the nape of David’s neck, and David feels his own shoulders rise as the soft push of Patrick’s stomach grazes the small of his back. “Reading you sales forecasts in bed? Is that your kink?”

“Oh  _ god _ no,” says David, but Patrick is making his way from the back of David’s neck to that little spot just below his ear, and David can feel a smile fighting its way across his face despite his state of emergency. “I can make an exception if  _ you’re  _ into that, but —”

Patrick turns him in his arms and cuts him off with a kiss, and David allows his hands to gently —  _ gently _ — rest on Patrick’s love handles. Which sends another thousand bolts of electricity through his cranky, brittle heart and instantly reminds him why he was suffering in the first place. 

Patrick has been on a mission to find out what David’s into for weeks, ever since David, sleepy and punch-drunk with intimacy, fumbled his answer to Patrick’s “So, is there anything specific that you like?” with a slow, blinking, “You mean like … kinks?”   
  
Patrick’s face had lit up. “If you’ve got them.”   
  
David had backpedaled so hastily that Patrick had rolled him over, kissed him hard, and then nuzzled at his neck and vowed to figure out what all that backpedaling was covering up. David had folded his head into the pillow and put a silent embargo on any untoward behavior surrounding Patrick’s softening stomach until he was inevitably found out.    
  
It isn’t that he’s ashamed of what he’s into — he’s run in enough eccentric art circles to know that as the kink spectrum goes, he sits decidedly at the tame end. Hell, he knows people in Schitt’s Creek who are into much weirder shit than he is. He profoundly wishes he did  _ not _ know that, but such is the curse of this disturbingly tiny, disturbingly intimate town.    
  
He knows that Patrick has seen far worse parts of him and still stuck around. But as with every irrational, obsessive quirk he reveals to Patrick, he frets that  _ this  _ is going to be the idiosyncrasy that breaks the camel’s back. He calls it “self-defense.” Stevie calls it “anxiety, David,  _ Jesus _ .”

Now, he keeps his hands light on Patrick’s sides, fighting the urge to grab. “If  _ you _ have a sales forecast kink,” he murmurs against Patrick’s mouth, “we can negotiate that at home.”

Patrick laughs, touching his forehead to David’s. The way he cradles the back of David’s head between kisses makes David feel so impossibly safe and protected that it’s  _ stupid _ , honestly. 

He kisses Patrick again, and then Patrick rests his chin on David’s shoulder, facing out at the rain, and David stares down the empty paper basket of brownie bites on the counter. Snacking at the counter is one thing; Patrick has been known to do that before. But it’s so much more often now, almost every day, and David finds it equal parts vaguely ominous and very, very hot.

“Is negotiating kinks your kink?” Patrick whispers in his ear.

David was not built to endure this specific kind of suffering.


	2. Chapter 2

David is not  _ not  _ observant, despite what a string of ex-partners might report. Being  _ observant _ , he’s learned, is something a lot of people equate with being  _ creepy _ . For instance, he thinks, Patrick probably would not be thrilled to learn that when they got together, David could fit three fingers between Patrick’s skin and the waistband of his no-name jeans, and that the tally has currently dwindled from a modest three to a very snug  _ one _ .

Something else David has noticed, which he himself is and is not thrilled by, is that Patrick has been eating a  _ lot  _ lately. 

It’s taken a while for him to clock it, mostly because  _ he  _ eats a lot, and it’s been nice to not feel weird about that. Plus, it’s not like watching Patrick soften up has been  _ un _ pleasant. But David can only enjoy a good thing for so long before he starts wondering how he’ll ruin it, and the more he watches Patrick, the more he starts to wonder if Patrick is actually stress-eating.

David knows that pattern. There have been stretches of time, months even, where he’s been able to eat like a normal person, until stress or shame or some other existential unhappiness hits him, and then — bam, like the first spike of sun to the hungover eye: the emotional eating begins. He’s been known to put away whole trays of lasagna, party-sized bags of chips with jumbo tubs of onion dip, and, on one especially unfortunate occasion, an entire supermarket funfetti cake. It’s a fact of life at this point: stressful times demand elastic waistbands.

He thinks Patrick knows this about him, at least in the abstract: he knows that ordering pizza after a stressful day is a surefire way to improve David’s mood, or that he can always be swayed or motivated by baked goods, but he’s never seen David at his truly gnarly whole-jar-of-queso-with-a-spoon worst.

At the moment, David is leaned up against Patrick in bed, anxiously teasing two fingers against that slip of creamy skin. They’re ostensibly watching an episode of  _ Vanderpump Rules _ , but David’s attention is on the  _ other  _ reality show unfolding in front of him, as Patrick plows through one sleeve of cookies and starts in on a second.

David studies him. He doesn’t  _ look  _ stressed or upset, but they had dinner all of two hours ago, and Patrick still insisted on bringing the Oreos to bed with them, which peeves David half because this deepens his anxiety, and half because he bought those to stress-eat  _ himself _ .

“Is that your kink?” Patrick asks, and David freezes. He hastily withdraws his hand from Patrick’s waist. He’s already taken his rings off for the night, but he twists his fingers together anyway, muscle memory taking over.

“What now?”

Patrick smirks. “You’re staring at Lisa Vanderpump’s husband’s and dog’s matching outfits.”

David scoffs, his whole body sagging with relief. “Please. Giggy has been dead since at least the nineties. Ken, probably the early 2000s. I have a very elaborate theory about how they’re keeping him reanimated.”

Patrick laughs, loud and genuine, and a little cartoon arrow burrows into David’s heart. Something is  _ obviously  _ wrong here — why else would Patrick have spent the past six months eating like a regular person, and then start overeating  _ now _ ? And if something  _ is _ wrong, why isn’t Patrick  _ acting like it _ ?

The show goes to commercial, and David walks his fingers over Patrick’s bare skin, leaning onto his shoulder. He does his best to keep his voice neutral as he asks, “Still hungry?” 

Patrick shrugs. “Just wanted something sweet. Here, have some. You don’t have to let me eat them all.”

He brushes an Oreo against David’s lips, and David feels his mouth soften into a wry smile against his best efforts. He accepts the cookie, and wrinkles his nose when Patrick kisses it before rolling out of bed.

David sets the Oreos on Patrick’s nightstand and watches him brush his teeth. The curves of his sides are visible through his t-shirt, and the sweats he’s wearing look snug around his hips and backside. David racks his brain. They already fought about the new sheets, only to realize they were both arguing in favor from different angles. Patrick doesn’t get fussy about laundry the way that David does, probably because — David shudders to think — everything he owns can be dried on permanent press. And if there’s one thing Patrick is usually good at, it’s being direct when something is bothering him. David would have noticed if something was amiss at the store — or Patrick would have brought it up. So it  _ has  _ to be something between them that’s making Patrick start eating like his metabolism has sped up threefold — something that’s been going on for at least a month now. 

David’s skin goes cold under the covers, and he presses himself against Patrick when he settles back into bed, like that will help anything.  _ Intimacy is stupid!!  _ he wants to fling open the windows and yell.  _ Why do we fucking do this to ourselves!!! _

And then Patrick leans to press a soft, tender kiss to David’s forehead, which is kind of nice. 

“I was thinking of going shopping this weekend,” he says, kneading one of David’s cold hands in his own. “Maybe we can close early Saturday, drive up to Elmdale?”

David feels his back arch against the pillows between his spine and the headboard. “Shopping for what?”

Patrick shrugs. His eyes land somewhere in David’s lap. “I could use some new pants.”

David manages to hold his breath while saying, “What’s wrong with the old ones?”

Patrick hesitates. David waits.

“Must have shrunk in the wash,” says Patrick finally, and David manually overrides the urge to stare into the middle distance over Patrick’s shoulder. Oh, the cruel and unforgiving irony of watching your boyfriend eat himself out of his pants for reasons he won’t admit to you, only to have him waft the irresistible offer of watching him try on  _ new _ pants under your nose. 

“We can go to that burger place you liked,” Patrick entices, picking up David’s hand again and digging his thumbs into the meat of David’s palm. “I mean, the one you didn’t hate. Dinner’s on me.”

_Intimacy is good for_ _nothing!!!_


	3. Chapter 3

“Wait,” says Stevie. “ _ Why  _ do you think Patrick is about to break up with you?”

David leans over his mug of mediocre coffee. “He ate an entire half a cheesecake after dinner last night!” he hisses, although Patrick is safely across the street, minding the store while David takes his lunch. “And the other half for breakfast this morning. What  _ else  _ does that mean?”

Stevie swirls her straw in her soda, brow furrowed. “That he has good taste in desserts?”

David bats at her hand across the table. “He’s stress-eating, Stevie! Something is wrong and he won’t talk to me about it, which probably means that it’s  _ very  _ bad, and I need to brace for it.”

He’s sitting on the side of the booth that faces out to the street, so he can make sure Patrick doesn’t run out for an emergency tea or snack and end up overhearing them. Stevie keeps following David’s glances over her shoulder, which somehow adds to his paranoia even though he can literally see that there’s nothing to worry about.

Stevie cocks her head. “Are you sure about that?

“Do you have any evidence that he is  _ not  _ about to break up with me?” David asks, plucking a fry off Stevie’s plate. His own burger and fries are long gone, although they haven’t done much to soothe his anxious stomach. The lunch rush is lazy today, and he considers ordering a second one, but the shame of having to order to Twyla  _ again  _ keeps his mouth shut. This godforsaken place needs more than one waitress so he can adequately camouflage his stress-eating.

Stevie widens her eyes. “Uh, for one thing, every time he looks at you, he’s as close to having literal hearts in his eyes as the human body will allow.”

“That’s just how Patrick looks,” counters David, though it warms up his heart just a tiny bit.

“No,” says Stevie emphatically, “that’s just how Patrick looks at  _ you _ .”

David’s heart goes so warm that he wonders if it’s a premature hot flash. He takes several more fries off Stevie’s plate. She gives him a look that says,  _ If you were not experiencing extreme emotional distress, I would kill you _ .

“Then why would he  _ do this _ ?” he whines, shoving the fries into his mouth. “Every time I enter a room with him now I’m paranoid that he’s just going to dump me. He  _ has  _ to know this is destroying me from two completely different angles.”

Stevie lifts an eyebrow. David folds his arms on the table and slumps down on them, careful not to let his skin touch the Formica: a germ-free portrait of defeat.

“The breakup angle,” he says into his sleeve. “And, you know.” He lifts a hand to gesture vaguely. “The  _ other _ angle.”

He opens one eye in time to see Stevie’s smirk. “Riiiiiiight,” she says. “The  _ kinky  _ angle.”

He motions frantically at her to lower her voice, and her smirk eases. “Have you told him about either of those angles?” she asks.

David shoots her a scandalized look as he gathers more fries off her plate. “Um, no, because I do  _ want  _ to keep him around.”

Stevie shakes her head, then glances at her phone as it begins to vibrate against the tabletop. “I,” she says pointedly, “am going to go communicate with my partner for a moment. Why don’t  _ you  _ sit here and … think.”

She doesn’t just step away from the table, she goes all the way outside, which makes David shudder at the thought that Jake probably wants to talk about something gross.

He cranes his neck past Stevie to see through the doors of Rose Apothecary, where he can just see the navy-blue shape that is Patrick puttering around the frontmost displays. His whole body feels like it’s being hugged for a moment, but in the nice way, not the crushing panic attack kind of way. Looking at Patrick always feels like that, like seeing a steady light on the horizon and knowing it’s home.

A cold front sloshes through David’s stomach. Not for long, if his theory is right. He hasn’t given too much thought to picking up the pieces of a life Patrick chooses to step out of. He’s just begun to finally —  _ finally  _ — feel like he almost sort of has his life together, and he isn’t ready to give that back.

“Anything else I can get for you?” Twyla pipes at his side, and he jumps, suddenly aware of how hard he’s been grinding his teeth.

He sits back and hesitates. Is it enabling to bring Patrick a snack before lunch? Is that exactly what he  _ shouldn’t  _ do? Or, if he’s going to get dumped anyway, is it better to reap the benefits of Patrick’s appetite  _ now _ , while he still can?

David avoids her eyes, twists the rings on each finger. “There isn’t any chance you still have any doughnuts from this morning, is there?”

“Sure do!” says Twyla brightly. “I think we’ve got half a dozen or so in the back. Want me to grab one for you?”

David takes a deep breath. “Actually, the half dozen would be great.”

Twyla doesn’t blink. “Sure, I’ll box those right up for you!”

Patrick always looks so  _ delighted  _ when David thinks to get him things, whether it’s a tea and scone from the cafe or the cucumber facial milk he clearly has no idea what to do with but gamely keeps on his bathroom counter anyway and sometimes dabs on if David is watching. Maybe half a dozen likely-slightly-stale doughnuts will nudge him back into “Don’t Break Up With David” territory.

And if not, David figures grimly, well, at least he’ll get to see Patrick stuff his face with some pastries first.

When Stevie returns to the table a moment later, she casts a smug look at the box. “Are those for you or for Patrick?”

David lifts his chin. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Stevie nods. “Talk to your boyfriend.”

“I don’t think you understand how much I can _ not _ do that,” says David, hefting the doughnut box as he stands up. “It’s not like I can just ask him when he’s planning to break up with me.”

“Maybe,” says Stevie, adopting that look of wide-eyed fake innocence she uses when she thinks David’s being an idiot about something, “that’s because he  _ isn’t  _ going to break up with you.”

But he  _ watched  _ Patrick eat that half a cheesecake last night, watched him eat a reasonable amount and come back to the couch, then wander back to the kitchen and then return to the couch a couple minutes later, the same restless way David has seen him pace at the store when something wasn’t adding up. 

It made David’s chest feel tight and uneasy, even though Patrick had snuggled against him on the couch afterward and made one of those little overfull noises when he’d finally satiated his appetite. David had wanted so badly to ask if something was wrong, but he hadn’t been able to push the words all the way to the front of his mouth.

Instead, he’d pulled Patrick closer and felt the gentle rise and fall of his bloated stomach against his own side. He’d waited until Patrick was snoring softly to give it a chaste little pat at its roundest part. Even that had sent a giddy, forbidden thrill through him, and he’d woken Patrick up to shuffle to bed before he could engage in any other verboten activities. 

Now, he pushes away the thought that this will be Patrick’s second meal of dessert today, and holds the cafe door for Stevie with his hip. “Don’t you have to be back at the motel?” he asks when she moves to follow him. 

She shrugs. “Your dad has a field day when I leave him alone over there. And also, I want to see this.” She nods to the box of doughnuts.

“You are a voyeur,” David informs her. 

“No, I want to see you squirm. That’s very different.”

“Well — keep quiet,” David hisses, and shoves open the door to Rose Apothecary with his other hip. 

Patrick is shelving the new shipment of hand-thrown, hand-painted ceramic housewares, his back to the door, and David stops short, Stevie slamming into him from behind. 

The dark fabric of Patrick’s navy button-down pulls across his shoulders, and it’s snug enough that it highlights the dips and bulges of his sides. Best and worst of all, the shelf he’s reaching for is just high enough that his shirt rides up, exposing the two dimples at the small of his back, and the two handfuls of pudge above the waistband of his jeans. 

David is very glad Patrick is holding the breakables, because as it is, he almost drops the box of doughnuts.

“Hey, you!” Patrick calls from across the store, turning to flash them a smile. “Hey, Stevie!”

He hops off the little stepladder they use to reach the highest shelves and comes over, rests a gentle hand on David’s waist and kisses him hello. Then he looks at the doughnut box and back at David, questioning, and David feels himself flush. 

“I brought you something,” he says, attempting to maintain the perfect, nonchalant balance of generous and even. “It’s, um, Employee Appreciation Day.”

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “I thought that was in March?”

“Um, in the  _ U.S.  _ it is,” says David, shifting his weight uneasily. Of course Patrick knows the actual date of Employee Appreciation Day. “Here it’s today.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s March first in the U.S.  _ and _ Canada,” says Patrick, furrowing his brow in the way David can never decipher as serious confusion or gentle mocking.

“Yeah, I think Patrick’s right,” says Stevie, and David turns to shoot her a look that says  _ thanks a lot _ .

“Okay, I don’t know how _you_ would know that, considering I’m sure that no one has ever appreciated anything at the motel, but whatever.” He clears his throat. “Do I need a _reason_ to appreciate my boyfriend?” 

“No, no!” says Patrick, putting that hand on David’s waist again. “It’s a very nice surprise. I’m very grateful.” He lifts the lid of the doughnut box. “Do you have six boyfriends, or are these all for me?”

David is having trouble breathing. “They are for you,” he says carefully. “They’re probably stale, but, you know. Maybe not.”

“Thank you,” says Patrick, the tiniest bit of a smirk shining through his smile. “I was going to run out for lunch, I’ve been craving one of those mac-and-cheese grilled cheeses from the cafe all day, but …” He squeezes David’s shoulder and sets the doughnut box on the counter, then hops up beside it. “Maybe I’ll have these and hang around with you instead.”

Which really worms itself into David’s heart and makes itself at home, because in his colorful, tumultuous, stress-inducing relationship history, the number of people who have chosen quiet, mundane time alone with David over literally anything else, who have chosen stale doughnuts and store inventory and no lunch break over the sandwich they’ve been looking forward to all day, is … well. It’s just Patrick.

“I would like that,” says David, allowing himself a smile. Maybe Stevie is right. Maybe he’s being doomsday about this for no reason. 

But it’s so  _ hard  _ to convince himself of that, even though Patrick keeps being good. Patrick keeps  _ wanting him _ . It doesn’t seem like something that can be true. 

Maybe it isn’t Patrick he can’t trust. Maybe it’s himself.  

“How’s this? Stay here for lunch, and I’ll buy you a mac-and-cheese grilled cheese for dinner,” David says, resting a hand on Patrick’s knee, and if it’s a bribe against a thought only he can hear, well, nobody else has to know.

“The  _ really _ romantic thing would be to offer to make it yourself,” Stevie chips in from by the door. 

“Absolutely not,” says David, as Patrick says, “Oh, that is _really_ not a good idea,” which makes David feel a lot better about not even offering to try. It makes him feel known in a quiet, private way that’s as unfamiliar as it is comforting.

Stevie smirks. “You’re both hopeless,” she says, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. “I’m heading back to the motel. More than an hour and it turns into a power trip for your dad.”

The door chimes behind her, and Patrick turns David around and takes his hands. “Thank you for the doughnuts,” he says, touching his forehead to David’s. “You sure it’s just … appreciation?”

“Excuse me?” asks David, bracing his hands on Patrick’s knees. His pulse kicks into double time. “What are you implying?”

Patrick shrugs, the corner of his mouth crooking up. “Oh, nothing. Just wondering if you had any kind of … ulterior motive.”

David’s mind flashes back to what he said to Stevie at lunch, slumped over the table:  _ The breakup angle. And the  _ other _ angle _ . What’s he supposed to say to that?  _ It’s definitely not a meager bargaining chip against our impending breakup. Also, I do appreciate you but I also really want to see you eat half a dozen doughnuts _ .

“I do appreciate you,” he says instead, firmly. “And you seem to have had a — a sweet tooth lately, so I thought you might like … a treat.”

Even as he says it, he can’t believe he’s saying it. A hot flush creeps up his neck.  

“Ah,” says Patrick, turning one of David’s hands over and tracing the lines of his palm like he might find the real answer there. David hurriedly closes his hand. “Well, thanks. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“You hate it,” says David immediately, and Patrick slides off the counter and wraps him in his arms so tightly that David’s heart forgets to beat. He braces for  _ Is this your kink? _

“No,” says Patrick instead, softly, right up against David’s cheek. “I mean it. It’s a sweet gesture, I like doughnuts, and I  _ love _ that you were thinking of me. Thank you.”

David looks over Patrick’s shoulder, his heart starting back up again, and curses the ceramic dishware for needing to be unpacked and shelved. It’s hard to doubt himself when he can’t breathe without physically feeling how much Patrick wants him, but that moment of letting go always comes before he’s ready.


	4. Chapter 4

“So I’ve been noticing ….” says Alexis, drawing out the word and giving her head a jingly little shake, “that  _ Patrick _ seems to be getting a little  _ chunky _ .”

She says this perfectly brightly as she’s brushing her hair out in front of the mirror, as if this is a completely normal conversation to start. David almost drops the book he’s holding, prays that the sinkhole he’s been hoping will open beneath the motel since they arrived will choose this moment to finally answer his call.

He puts the book down and fiddles with his rings, then the bracelet Patrick gave him. 

“Well, it’s not like Ted kept that tight little body after you got back together, hmm?” he says finally. He thinks that Ted, like Patrick, looks miles better soft than tight, but can never seem to pin down how Alexis feels about it, and errs on the side of needling her with it.

Alexis puts down her brush. Her face is bright pink, which is extremely validating, and she flounces down across from him in a cloud of designer linen and perfume. “That is  _ different _ ,” she says primly, tapping her pinched fingers together in her lap, “because  _ Ted  _ eats when he’s happy.”

David arches an eyebrow. “So Ted only got buff because you dumped him.”

“Okay, so basically  _ yes _ , but — that is  _ so _ not the  _ point _ , David! I asked you first.”

David can feel his eyebrows fighting to do the thing his dad’s do when he can’t believe he’s being subjected to whatever he’s hearing. “I would love it,” he says carefully, twisting one of his rings all the way around, “if we could  _ not  _ have this conversation about my boyfriend.”

“Oh my  _ god _ , David, I didn’t mean it like a bad thing. I actually  _ love _ that for him. Patrick is just such a  _ round  _ person, you know?” She draws a little circle in the air with her index fingers. “Round on the inside, round on the outside. It’s like, so  _ satisfying _ . Those chubby little cheeks!”

“Wait,” says David, the magnitude of her words just starting to hit. Talking to Alexis sometimes feels like drinking a twelve-shot latte topped with a half gallon of foam: there’s actually something powerful in there, you just have to get through a lot of froth before you feel the jolt. “Did you say that Ted eats when he’s happy?”

Alexis slides two rings onto each of her hands and compares them, her attention already elsewhere, but David can’t make his brain process this. “Is that, like, a thing?”

She glances back at him. “I don’t know, I guess. Not everyone gets so desperate when they’re stressed that they will  _ literally _ eat dog treats,  _ ew _ , David.”

“That happened  _ once _ !” David says, snatching up his phone and stalking toward the door. “And I was  _ very  _ stressed!”

His mind is spinning the way he and Alexis used to spin dreidels when they were kids: like the more force they put behind it, the more they would win. His brain is going for gold right now, trying to make sense of this conversation. 

Maybe it  _ does  _ make sense that someone like Patrick wouldn’t have developed a coping mechanism like David’s. Instead, Patrick just  _ deals  _ with his problems, which David has to admit  _ does  _ seem more direct, but at the same time, unfathomably more repulsive.

David paces the sidewalk outside the motel, the July sun beating down on his black hoodie and fitted joggers, and sweats about it. Maybe he should just ask. No, he  _ can’t  _ just ask. Maybe he should pool his funds, disappear to take up a life of hermitry in some awful city that can afford him delivered groceries and slightly-more-upscale-than-basic amenities, and never speak to a single breathing soul again.  _ That  _ sounds much safer. 

He can’t believe that having a potentially positive answer to the Patrick situation is  _ even more stressful _ .


	5. Chapter 5

He can’t look Alexis in the eye after that conversation, so he spends the night at Patrick’s, toting the promised mac-and-cheese grilled cheese, which Patrick wolfs down with an enthusiasm that leaves David clutching his proverbial pearls. The internet offered disappointingly few results when he shamefully Googled how many calories one of those extremely compelling monstrosities contained, but Patrick moaned so much afterward about how full he was that David guesses that pretty much answers his question. 

It also renders him completely incapable of bringing up Patrick’s appetite for fear of giving away exactly how interested he is in in this kind of thing. He’s been burned this way before: the girl he told after two weeks, whose momentary coolness fooled him into thinking he was safe, until he never heard from her again; the guy he mentioned it to because they were  _ talking  _ about kinks, the guy  _ asked _ , and then left David at a shitty bar in the middle of Brooklyn with not so much as a  _ No thanks, man _ . David thinks he’s well within his rights to be wary, but god, is it wearing him down.

Now, he tosses and turns beside Patrick, who’s so asleep he’s practically comatose. David has, possibly selfishly, hoarded all the blankets but the sheet on his side of the bed in a pitiful attempt at self-soothing, but Patrick’s sleep doesn’t seem to be suffering, so he doesn’t feel too guilty.

The self-soothing, however, is going badly. Even the sensation of being snugly cocooned in blankets doesn’t provide the relief it normally does, and he huffs out a sigh before untangling himself and creeping out of bed. He knows that Patrick’s kitchen is ripe for raiding, partially because he’s snooped around it enough to know that Patrick is good at grocery shopping, and partially because he’s quietly stocked it with his own key comfort staples should the need ever arise. 

David is extremely not proud of sinking to this particular depth in someone else’s kitchen, but at least he’s prepared.

He begins the assembly process, which is its own sort of soothing. He takes out the pint of Half Baked he shoved behind the mysterious and myriad collection of ice packs in Patrick’s freezer, the block of Chèvre Noir he pilfered from Heather’s latest cheese shipment, a package of grocery-store frosted sugar cookies he feels only slightly guilty for fantasizing about almost as much as he fantasizes about Patrick, the family-size bag of all-dressed chips he’s replaced three times because Patrick keeps eating them himself and David can’t exactly admit that he bought them with the intention of stress-eating them alone at night.

He starts with the cheese, slicing it onto some of the crackers left over from the night he and Patrick decided to try their hand at making their own charcuterie board, an endeavor that had proved very dangerous because apparently, to Patrick, finger food meant hand-feeding. He had the kind of perfect technique that made David wonder if he’d done it before — he kept one hand stroking David’s hair or his jaw, knew how much to load on a cracker before offering it, made it feel like an  _ occasion _ instead of a dinner they were sharing on the couch.

And then, thrillingly, he’d let David do the same for him. 

David had held his breath at first. He’d brushed olives and almonds and careful rolls of sliced meat against Patrick’s lips, given him the chance to say no each time, until his second glass of wine had let him relax into it. Patrick wasn’t saying no — he was  _ asking for more _ . He was trusting David to be gentle with him, and that, on top of the wish fulfillment of feeding Patrick as much cheese and fruit and crackers as their collective hearts desired, made David feel like he’d drunk a whole magnum bottle of zhampagne instead of just the two glasses. 

It is very different putting cheese into his own mouth, alone in Patrick’s kitchen at two in the morning. His stomach is full of anxiety instead of zhampagne, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s standing on the precipice of disaster, that something bad is going to happen, and it’s going to happen  _ soon _ .

He eats faster. The cheese pairs questionably with the potato chips and even more strangely with the sugar cookies, but he keeps alternating, salty then sweet, like maintaining a balance of what he puts in his mouth will help him find a balance with Patrick too. There  _ has  _ to be middle ground between the constant paranoia that Patrick is about to dump him and the wild, sailing euphoria that overtakes him in the moments when he’s positive Patrick wants him. 

_ Talk to your boyfriend _ , says Stevie in his head, but he chases the thought away with a very ambitious bite of cheese. Communication doesn’t just mean being honest about his feelings — it also means putting the most vulnerable, insecure parts of himself on display, and  _ that  _ is something David has actively and creatively avoided for decades. Even Patrick, who somehow makes emotional vulnerability seem  _ extremely  _ sexy, can’t convince David that he can pull that off, too.

David shoves another sugar cookie into his mouth, then pries off the lid of his ice cream. His stomach is starting to hurt, which usually means he’s nearing the bizarre nirvana where he is simultaneously neither in pain nor experiencing anxiety because his body is too overwhelmed to put either signal all the way through. Right now, however, he does not feel soothed. He crams a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth and follows it with another handful of chips, which neither tastes nor feels good, and determinedly digs his spoon back into the ice cream.

And then the big overhead light flips on, and there’s Patrick, blinking against the brightness.

“David?” he says, taking a step closer. “What are you doing?”

“I — uhhhhh,” says David, his brain shorting out. His stomach cramps, and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to keep himself from wincing. He waves his hands, like that will shoo Patrick off. “I — you’re dreaming. Go back to bed.”

Patrick leans against the doorframe. “Interesting that a dream is standing in my kitchen eating my chips.”

“Um, _actually_ ,” says David, letting his voice rise because he’s anxious and unhappy and his stomach _hurts_ , god damn it, “these are _my_ chips, which I bought _specifically_ to do this and which you keep eating.”

“To do what?” Patrick asks, pushing himself off the doorframe. “David, what is going on?” He pauses. “Are you eating … cheese and ice cream?”

“Yes!” says David, throwing up his hands. “Yes, I am! This is what I do when I’m stressed, all right? I stress-eat. And right now I am  _ very. Stressed _ .”

He shoves another piece of cheese into his mouth, but between his panic-breathing and the general windedness that comes with eating cheese, carbs, and desserts for three, no sooner has he swallowed than a mortifyingly loud hiccup rolls out of him, and he feels the last shreds of his dignity vaporize.

For a second he thinks Patrick almost smiles, but it fades as he approaches David, stopping on the other side of the kitchen table.

“Hey,” he says, and it breaks David’s heart amid the whirl of his emotions. “What’s going on? What are you stressed about?”

David is positive that there is not room inside him to squash this down anymore.

“ _ I _ ,” he says, “am —  _ hic _ ” —  _ fuck! _ — “stressed because  _ you  _ have been doing  _ this _ ” — he gestures to the remains of the snacks strewn on the counter — “for weeks, and I cannot figure out  _ what  _ you are upset about, except that it  _ probably  _ has to do with me and you are  _ probably  _ going to dump me any day now, and that is  _ extremely  _ —  _ hic _ — stressful because I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t know what I did wrong.”

His voice cracks at the end, and he hiccups miserably, white-knuckling the edge of the tabletop so his hands won’t shake. He looks everywhere but at Patrick, except to shoot a quick glance in his direction to gauge how hard he should brace himself.

“Okay,” says Patrick, and he sounds like he’s trying to find his footing. “First of all, I am not going to break up with you.”

David hiccups. He dares to look at Patrick just for another second. Patrick’s face is open, concerned, his brow furrowed. He is reaching across the table to David. 

David can’t reach back just yet. But he meets Patrick’s soft brown eyes to say, “What?”

“I love you,” says Patrick, and it makes David shudder still, the prickly borderlands between euphoria and paranoia. “I’m so happy with you, David. Why do you think I’m  _ not  _ happy?”

“Why  _ else  _ would you be —  _ hic _ — stress-eating?” David asks, loosening his grip on the table edge by a tiny bit. 

Patrick closes his eyes. “You think I’ve been stress-eating?”

David goes still. “Are you …  _ not _ ?”

Patrick spins in a circle, face buried in his hands. “You’re going to lose your mind when I explain this,” he says, which does not help David calm down.

“Are you  _ going  _ to explain it?” he demands. He wants nothing more to sit down so he doesn’t have to carry the weight of his binge on top of whatever Patrick is going to reveal to him, but he’s too tense to sit comfortably still. “Because I have been  _ agonizing  _ over this for  _ weeks _ .”

Patrick drags his hands down his face. “Okay,” he says. “Last month, you left some, uh. Very incriminating web content open on your laptop.”

All the air leaves David’s lungs, and he takes his hands from the edge of the table so he can properly wring them. He  _ always  _ closes those tabs. “I’m sorry, I did  _ what _ ?” 

“I think it was the Captain America guy?” ventures Patrick, and David’s body goes up in flames while Patrick appears to be fighting a smile. “But like, a lot more of him?”

David’s vision is fogging up, and he distantly wonders if this is how a fugue state begins. But through the tremendous haze of mortification, he realizes: Patrick does not sound weirded out by this. Patrick actually sounds like he’s  _ enjoying  _ it.

“Okay,” he says, trying to gather his composure. “So — okay. So maybe that  _ is  _ what I like. Maybe that  _ is  _ my kink. You —  _ hic _ — got me. But that does not explain you stress-eating for the better part of a month.”

“Of course it does!” says Patrick, incredulous. “All that junk food? All those snacks where you could watch me eat?  _ This _ ?” He jostles his stomach. “I’ve been wearing clothes that don’t fit me for  _ weeks _ , David!”

David’s heart rate is climbing so fast he’s afraid it might implode. “I wasn’t going to tell you that!”

“Oh, my god,” says Patrick, burying his face in his hands again. “ _Oh_ my god. Okay. I will be very clear about this. I saw your stuff online, and I figured you were into that, so I wanted to … give you that. I am not stress-eating. I’m eating _for_ _you_.”

The last month reforms itself in David’s mind. Patrick, already softer than when they’d started dating, suddenly eating more and more and more, getting softer and softer under David’s hands, making a point of overeating where David could see him. Patrick, trying to  _ give him something _ .

“Oh, my god,” says David quietly, and Patrick offers him a small, hopeful smile.

“I thought you knew,” says Patrick. “Or at least that you were starting to suspect when you brought me those doughnuts yesterday.”

David almost —  _ almost  _ — laughs in spite of himself. “Those were supposed to help convince you not to break up with me.”

He reaches across the table, and Patrick takes his hand. “I thought you finally figured me out. I name-dropped that mac-and-cheese grilled cheese just for you.”

“And believe me,” says David with a shaky laugh, “watching you eat that  _ was  _ incredible.”

“Also,” says Patrick, clasping David’s hand in both of his own, “you should know that when you get drunk, you are  _ not  _ subtle.”

“What does  _ that _ —  _ hic  _ — mean?”

Patrick rests a hand on his stomach. “You like to grab,” he says, a crafty little smile playing on his lips, and if David’s stomach weren’t killing him, he’d double over with how mortified he is at his drunk past self. “And you never stop pushing food on me.”

“It soaks up the alcohol,” David tries weakly, but the wobbliness in his knees isn’t anxiety anymore. It’s the staggering realization that someone wants him enough to not only accept the things he’s into, but actively embrace and engage in them for him — that he’s not just being  _ tolerated _ , but  _ loved _ .

Wow. Stevie was right. This  _ does _ feel a lot better.

“So does that answer your question?” Patrick asks, dropping his hands. “Does that reassure you that I am definitely, absolutely, not going to break up with you?”

David nods, his throat only a little tight. “Yeah,” he says softly. “That does the job.”

“ _ Good _ ,” says Patrick emphatically. “Can I hold you? Is that okay?”

“Yes,” says David, and when Patrick hugs him, he can feel all the tension melt from his shoulders. And all the food in his stomach protesting at the pressure. “Just — be careful. I am — _hic_ — disgustingly full right now.”

Patrick slides a hand over the hard curve of David’s stomach, and David does his best not to wince away. It isn’t self-consciousness — Patrick has seen him shirtless and bloated before, and is always unreasonably kind about it — so much as discomfort, but Patrick is gentle, and David allows himself to ease into the touch.

“Oh, man,” says Patrick. “Are you — do you want me to take care of this? I have a hot water bottle …?”

David goes to play with his rings, but they’re all stacked on Patrick’s bedside table. “I would actually —  _ hic  _ — love that.”

Patrick grins slyly. “Do you want me to eat so I can commiserate, or would you prefer that I dote on you while you suffer?”

The idea of Patrick stuffing himself to commiserate is  _ extremely  _ tempting now that he can appreciate it without worrying, but David’s thirst for attention wins out. “I would  _ love  _ to be doted on right now,” he says. “But, um, maybe tomorrow we can … experiment.”

Patrick’s grin is bright and mischievous. “I like that idea,” he says. “Let me clean this up and then I’ll take care of you.”

David hiccups and sinks onto one of the chairs, one hand pressed to his belly, and watches Patrick package up the remains of his binge. “Thank you,” he says as Patrick returns the ice cream to the freezer, “and I love you, but I would also _ really  _ appreciate if you —  _ hic  _ — chugged one of the beers in the fridge so I’m not the only one —  _ hic  _ — suffering this indignity.”

Patrick laughs. “You just want me to get a beer belly.”

Fireworks burst in David’s heart. “Okay, yes, but I also don’t want to be alone with this humiliation, so if you could indulge me with this one  _ tiny  _ little thing —”

Patrick closes the fridge with his hip, beer in hand. “Oh, I get the feeling I’m going to be indulging you a lot,” he says, settling into the chair next to David’s and resting a hand on his knee. “And I think it’s going to be a  _ lot  _ of fun.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Okay, what about these?” Patrick glances at David over his shoulder, then looks back to the mirror. The jeans he’s wearing are  _ definitely  _ a size too small, hugging the round curve of Patrick’s backside and making his love handles look even more pronounced. He tugs his T-shirt up to expose the soft cleft of his stomach and thumbs at the undone waistband of the jeans. “Think they fit?”

David has been sitting hunched on the little bench in the dressing room for the better part of an extremely well-spent hour. If someone had told him two years ago that one day he’d happily — or, okay,  _ willingly _ — spend his Saturday in the Gap almost-drooling over the way his boyfriend looked in midrange denim, he would have asked what they were on, and then asked if they could share so he could blast the thought out of his brain. But now —

“Oh, definitely,” says David, watching his reflection fight to keep his smile from ruining his deadpan. “I think you should really focus on pairs that you’re going to have to unbutton after meals.”

And _god_ it feels so good to be able to just _say that_ , and to see Patrick’s eyes crinkle in the mirror and to be able to sidestep worrying whether it’ll make him think David is gross or weird or extreme. It’s like a cosmic exhale, letting go of — well, maybe not _all_ his anxiety, but this one anxiety specifically.

“Don’t worry,” says Patrick, posing in the mirror. “I think that’s going to be any pair, at the rate we’re going.”

That  _ we  _ makes David’s chest feel like a fireplace, or maybe an old radiator, crackling and clanking back to life after years spent cold.  _ We _ — they’re in this together.

“I think you  _ could  _ stand to go a little tighter,” he offers, as Patrick strips out of that pair and reaches for another. “You have —  _ assets _ .”

“Assets that you get to see whether I’m wearing pants or not,” Patrick teases. His stomach jiggles as he tugs on a pair of khakis that put every bulge of his thighs on display, and he has to jump a little to get them all the way up around his waist. “I think this is the last pair. I know I promised you that burger place for dinner — do you still wanna do that?”

David mulls it over, watching Patrick assemble the sized-up pants that  _ actually  _ fit. He could sit at a table across from Patrick for another hour and watch him eat at arm’s length, or —

“Actually,” he says, “how about we get it to go?”

They huddle in the car, giggling like teenagers as they hover over the restaurant’s online menu. “How do we feel about a double burger with mac and cheese on it?” Patrick teases, kissing at David’s jaw, and David eyes him fondly. 

“It’s like you’re developing a very advanced radar for what’s going to play to my tastes.”

Patrick laughs. “Like I said, you are not subtle. What about wings?”

David cocks his head, purses his lips. “Mmm, instead of fries?”

“Oh, no,” says Patrick, looking affronted. “I already put in the fries. I mean, like, in addition.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” says David, kneading at one of Patrick’s hands. “Well, in that case. Wings give me secondhand embarrassment, so, um, my vote is to stick with the fries.”

“Noted,” says Patrick, and David leans his head onto his shoulder. He’s in love with the T-shirt Patrick is wearing, soft and heathered-gray and so clingy that David is considering converting religions to worship this particular cotton-jersey blend. It doesn’t let a single curve or roll go unnoticed or uncaressed, and David, who is finally letting himself show Patrick all the very specific physical attention he’s been taming for the past six months, can relate.

He tries to remember what he’d seen on the menu last time as Patrick peruses his options, and on a hunch, he asks, “Do they have desserts?”

Patrick raises an eyebrow. “I got a milkshake.”

David has to take a second to process that. “Um, okay, well, can still I look?”

“You’re  _ incorrigible _ ,” says Patrick, but he’s grinning, and he passes David the phone. “Choose something good,” he says, but there’s no real choice involved, because David has already found what he’s looking for: brownie bites, almost certainly better than the cafe’s.

He’s electric with excitement as they pick up the food and drive home, hands entwined on the center console, his pulse fast and anticipatory against Patrick’s. He appreciates so much about Patrick — his patience, his confidence, his sometimes unfounded but always unwavering belief in David, among many other things — but tonight his willingness to explore this with David is at the top of the list. 

They set up shop on the couch, and David unpacks the takeout bag with his heart jouncing in his chest.

“Where do you want me?” says Patrick, tilting his head onto David’s shoulder. 

“Um.” David has not thought about this. In all the fantasies he’s entertained about this exact thing, they’ve never discussed logistics. They’re already in it, and usually David is either (a) watching Patrick eat something decadent without participating, (b) feeding Patrick large quantities of a very specific small finger food, or (c) taking care of Patrick after (a) or (b) has already transpired. The lead-up has never crossed his mind.

Patrick is waiting, eyes expectant. David’s heartbeat thrums in his ears. 

“Um,” he begins again, “I actually do not have a plan for this part. I am very  _ new _ to this?”

Patrick scoots closer to him and slides an arm around his shoulders. David feels himself exhale.

“Hey,” says Patrick, “don’t worry. We’ll figure out what works.”

And there’s what  _ we  _ again, warm and golden. David leans into him.

“We can take it slow,” says Patrick. “How about — we put on a movie, have dinner, and just … see what happens.”

“Okay,” David agrees, as if it’s a monumental decision. “And — since you’re doing this for me, you can put on one of those What’s-His-Name movies.”

What’s-His-Name is the secret agent, or FBI operative, or covert mission  _ whatever  _ whose movies Patrick loves and hates so much for their inconsistencies that he spends the whole film picking apart all the details that don’t make sense. David gets the name wrong every time, so he’s given up trying to remember.

Either way, it makes Patrick laugh, and David settles in beside him, unwrapping his burger. As the movie begins, he watches Patrick sip from his milkshake, then start in on his own burger, and his hum of pleasure makes everything inside David go soft and gooey. There’s a healthy amount of performance anxiety zipping through him, too, but now, knowing where Patrick stands with this, it’s easier to believe that no matter how this goes, it’ll be okay.

He makes quick work of his own burger, then reaches for the extra-large order of fries between them. Patrick takes an ambitious bite of his burger, and David makes himself comfortable in his corner of the couch to enjoy the show. 

He steals a sip of Patrick’s vanilla shake and presses a socked foot against Patrick’s thigh, and offers him a beatific smile when Patrick shoots him a raised eyebrow. David can’t figure out an efficient way to help Patrick with that burger that doesn’t also make him feel breathless and slightly mortified, so he settles for another impatient handful of fries. He watches the way Patrick’s chin doubles slightly when he chews, the way his throat moves when he swallows, the way he rests his hand on his belly when he repositions on the couch. He’ll let Patrick finish the burger before getting handsy, but it’s getting harder and harder to sit still.

By the time Patrick finishes the last bite of his burger, David has inched so close to him that their thighs are touching, monopolizing the fries to tide him over until he can touch. He rests his head on Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick meets him with a kiss.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asks, and David nods against him.

“Are  _ you  _ enjoying yourself?”

“Mmhmm,” says Patrick, low and tempting. “But you know what I’d enjoy even more?”

David holds his breath and tries to arrange his face into something more fetching than wide-eyed arousal. “What?”

“If you’d leave me some fries,” Patrick deadpans, and then kisses him hard before he can react. “But also, if you helped me out. I’m getting a little full.” He palms his stomach. “And talk to me, hm? It’s weird having you so quiet.”

David sits back, hands twisting together in his lap. “So do you mean like, chat with you, or, like … talk about  _ this _ ?” He gestures to the takeout containers. 

Patrick shrugs. “Whatever you want. I just like hearing your voice, but if you want to tease me a little, that’s okay too.”

David’s breath catches. “Okay, I’m going to need you to be more specific about what kind of teasing we’re talking,” he says finally. “Gentle, playful, humiliating, mean …? Do you know what  _ any _ of that means in this context?”

“I did a little Googling,” Patrick admits, straightening up on the couch. “Just in case we ever actually talked about this.”

David buries his face in his hands. “I would have told you  _ eventually _ .”

“Mm, I don’t think so,” says Patrick cheerfully. “But I think I can handle whatever you throw at me.” He taps the container of fries. “Can I have some?”

David reaches for them, but when he turns back, Patrick looks thoughtful.

“Or maybe I shouldn’t,” he says, looking at David meaningfully. He grabs a handful of his stomach, and David lets out an involuntary yelp. “I’ve been getting pretty soft lately, maybe I should slow down.”

David’s mind goes white for a second, and Patrick’s face lights up with the sly half-smile that means he’s figured out something David likes. David bites his lip against his own delighted smile, but he’s not sure he’s successful in reining it in.

“Maybe,” David recovers, leaning in, “you should indulge while those new pants still fit,” and Patrick nods, pulling David closer.

He eases Patrick back against the arm of the couch and feeds him a handful of fries one by one. He slides a hand under Patrick’s T-shirt and has to catch his breath at how soft and plush his stomach is. He can feel the gentle ridges of the pale pink stretch marks tracking how plump he’s gotten, the silky smoothness of the underside of his belly, and he can’t help but grab.

“Look how much of you there is,” he says softly, pushing another fry into Patrick’s mouth. “Look what that appetite is doing to you.”

He offers him another fry, and Patrick looks at him keenly. “I shouldn’t,” he demurs again, but his smile gives him away, and David presses closer.

“Oh, you should,” he murmurs, grazing Patrick’s lips with his own. “You want it, don’t you?”

Patrick whispers back, “Keep feeding me.”

David would be self-conscious talking like this, he thinks, if Patrick didn’t make everything feel so  _ easy _ , so safe. Patrick gives him room to stumble and fall and pick himself up again, and David loves that about him, even if the stumbling never gets easier. 

David curls against him, catching his breath as Patrick takes the last few pulls from his milkshake. He rests his hand on Patrick’s belly, but it doesn’t rest for long before he finds himself toying with Patrick’s doughy sides.

“Oh,  _ hello _ ,” says Patrick, laughing, and David feels himself go red. 

“Listen, you’re perfect,” he says, feeding him another fry, “and I would like to experience that to its fullest.”

Patrick smirks at  _ to its fullest _ , and David moves on top of him, one hand still ranging over his stomach, gently squeezing and jostling. They finish the fries like that, Patrick pushing a few into David’s mouth for good measure. The warmth of Patrick’s lips against his fingertips fills him with the kind of slow, coiled lust that makes him yearn for neck kisses and whispered endearments and soft skin on skin more so than sex. Sex is good — sex with Patrick is  _ great _ — but playing out this particular fantasy, knowing the trust it takes between them, makes him long for something quieter, more tender.

“Are you good?” David asks, only a little anxiously, when Patrick leans back, one hand braced on his belly, his eyelids heavy. David can hear his breathing, soft and a little labored, and it pushes a thrill through him. “Do you need to stop?”

“Just a second,” says Patrick, so David hovers, kissing his forehead and his neck, stroking his short hair. He slips his hand back under Patrick’s shirt and rubs his swollen stomach, slow and gentle, until Patrick sighs and lolls his head to the side.

“That feels very nice,” he says, his voice low, blissed-out and sleepy.

David glances at the little takeout container of brownie bites still sitting on the coffee table. Still rubbing Patrick’s stomach, he ventures, “Are you feeling like dessert, maybe, or …?”

Eyes closed, Patrick smiles. “Incorrigible.”

David waits, squints. “So is that a no on dessert?”

Patrick opens his eyes and maneuvers an arm around David, squishing him against the soft bulge of his side. “Oh, definitely not. Pass up a chance to turn you on  _ and  _ eat some brownies without lifting a finger? I don’t think so.”

“That is  _ very  _ devious of you,” David teases, and when Patrick kisses him, he turns it into the long, slow, tantalizing kind he knows Patrick is highly susceptible to.

Sure enough, when he pulls away, it’s Patrick’s turn to be flushed and wide-eyed, and David presents him with a brownie bite and a very self-satisfied smile. 

This is where David truly feels he’s at his peak. He straddles Patrick’s thighs, keeps one hand teasing at his stomach, and uses his other hand to graze pieces of brownie against Patrick’s mouth until he accepts them, and intersperses them with kisses that get softer and softer as Patrick’s breathing gets heavier.

For a moment, David is sure he’s about to tap out, until Patrick shifts position with a groan and asks, “Can I have another one?”

“Mm, do you  _ need _ another one?” David teases gently, prodding at Patrick’s stomach and slipping a finger between his skin and his waistband. “Because these are feeling very tight.”

“But I  _ want  _ another one,” Patrick breathes against David’s lips, and that bare admission of desire sends a shudder of arousal through him.

When the container is empty, Patrick is breathing in short, shallow breaths, and he’s sunk down low on the couch, but there’s a little crescent-moon smile on his pink-cheeked face. His expression is, like Stevie said in the cafe the other day, as close to heart-eyes as the human body will allow. 

David is basking in it like Maldivian beach sunshine. Patrick looks content, well-cared-for, and utterly enamored, and to be honest, David didn’t ever really think that he could make anyone feel  _ one  _ of those ways, never mind all three.

“Are you good?” he asks Patrick again, and Patrick nods sleepily.

“I’m very good. But I’m sleeping here tonight.” He pats the piece of couch next to him. “There’s room for you.”

David slithers in between Patrick and the back of the couch, and snuggles up against him. His hand roves back under the hem of Patrick’s shirt, and Patrick  _ hmmm _ s and shifts.

“Okay?” David says gently.

Patrick nods. “Unbutton my pants for me?”

It takes David a second, but he fumbles with the button of Patrick’s snug jeans and presses a kiss to the soft skin that fills the new space there. 

He worms his way back up to Patrick’s shoulder. Patrick turns to drop a kiss on his temple. “This was fun,” he murmurs. “I’m glad we talked about it.”

David’s heart swells three sizes. “I love you,” he whispers, “and not just for your very impressive capacity for junk food.”

Patrick makes one of his sleepy puppy sounds beside him. “I love you too, babe.” He makes another soft noise and burrows closer to David. “Wait ’til I get some more practice. Then you’ll really be in trouble.” 

He tucks his head against David’s shoulder and yawns, bringing their entwined hands to rest on David’s chest. He presses a soft kiss onto David’s collarbone, and it’s only a minute later that David feels his breathing dip toward sleep.

David will admit, under extreme duress, that intimacy may, in fact, be good for something.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, come find me on [tumblr](http://www.alittlepudge-neverhurtnobody.tumblr.com)!


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